Demand for parts hampers GM's pace of recall repairs

Melissa Miller of Sterling, Va., who is still driving her car though it was recalled for a deadly defect, hasn't had luck scheduling a service appointment.

Photo: DANIEL ROSENBAUM, STR

Four months after Melissa Miller's car was recalled by General Motors for a deadly defect, she is still waiting for it to be fixed - and still driving it.

Miller's repeated calls to her local dealership in Sterling, Va., have not helped. Nor have the multiple postcards GM has sent her in recent weeks suggesting she schedule a service appointment. She first requested one in April. Across the country, there are simply not enough replacement parts for cars like hers.

Miller's 2006 Saturn Ion is among the 2.6 million small cars GM recalled this year for a faulty ignition switch, which the carmaker has linked to at least 13 deaths and 54 accidents. Nearly four months since GM began recalling the cars, about 177,000 have been repaired, the company said Monday, or 7 percent of the total number affected.

The pace of repairs is likely to be among the questions that GM's chief executive, Mary Barra, faces from lawmakers on Wednesday when she returns before a House subcommittee investigating the automaker's failure to fix the faulty switch. She is scheduled to appear with Anton Valukas, the former U.S. attorney who issued a scathing report on GM's management culture.

Delphi, the supplier of the replacement switch, has increased its production of the part, which had been discontinued for several years. Two new production lines are active, with a third scheduled to start in August. GM has projected all repairs will be completed by October.

But demand for repairs has far outstripped production, upsetting many owners.

Mark Rigby, service manager for Tim Lally Chevrolet in Bedford, Ohio, said that parts deliveries had increased in recent weeks. In April, the dealership received a few at a time; last week, it received 180 in one shipment.

But with a waiting list of more than 1,400 customers and an average of 30 repairs completed daily, Rigby expects that it will take until late August or early September for his dealership to fulfill the requests.

"We're trying to accommodate everybody; we're doing our best," he said. "We're calling clients on a daily basis to let them know the parts aren't in. It's like anything else, it takes a while to build up momentum."